IE pers.pron. (dual forms)

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Jens and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 1999 10:05 AM

> On Wed, 12 May 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>> Of all the arguments employed to explain divergent forms, analogy is surely
>> the weakest because it implies a *mistake* on the part of native speakers of
>> the language. Were Sanskrit speakers all **childs**?

> I'm sure all speakers of Sanskrit were children at one time. Aren't you
> in effect dismissing the existence of analogy as a factor in language
> change?

No, I am not. What I tried to do is to suggest that 'analogy' as an
explanation is to be *least* preferred because each "mistake" is sui
generis; no "mistake" implies that another mistake *will* be made only that
it *might * be made,

> In the case of the non-neuter dual, the Sanskrit form -a:(v)
> corresponds fully with the evidence from the other languages, only
> elsewhere the other stem-classes use a different morpheme that can
> everywhere continue an IE *-e.

That, IMHO, is a big "ONLY"; "correspond" means something a little more
restrictive to me. I fail to see how OCS C-st. -i, and u-stem -y  (for nom.
masc./fem.) "corresponds".

> So, the other languages distinguish o-stems stems from non-o-stems in this
> point, Sanskrit does not. English has -s in the genitive sg. and pl., most
> related languages only in the sg.  The two problems are quite parallel, and
> analogy is known to be the answer in the latter case, what's wrong with
> suspecting in the former?

There is nothing wrong with a suspicion that is in keeping with the data.

>> Now, I have two questions:

>> 1) If no IE syllable may begin with a vowel in a root, and affixes derive
>> from grammaticalized morphemes, why should we expect any affix to originally
>> be simply -V?

> Oh boy. I'm not saying the non-neuter was _originally_ *-e, I'm saying it
> was (o things look as if it was) in the IE protolanguage. I am not sure
> there were no vowel-initial roots, it is mostly very hard to prove that
> something as hazy as *H1 was not present. On the other hand, there is
> absolute certainty that IE did have vowel-initial affixes. You may take
> the gen.sg. ending, whether you want to posit as *-os or as *-es, there is
> no place for "-Hos" or "-Hes";

Sorry that I did not make clear that my objection to *-e was principally
directed towards the termination of the perfect. Beekes reconstructs most
dual forms as containing [H{1}] and, formwise, I have no problem with that.
As for the genitive, I reconstruct *-s(V), with the final vowel falling off
due to stress-accent of a preceding syllable: "Ce/oC + sV -> Ce/o-"Ce/os.

> the 3pl active ends in *-ent, certainly not "-Hent" (I am speaking of the
> full forms, I know there are zero-grade variants, but they are plainly
> derived from the fuller variants by rule).  As for the ultimate origin of the
> dual *-e, I have given that question a good deal of thought, and perhaps we
> are not so far apart in this. From a purely IE point of view, the form *-e is
> odd in a point which seems to have caused no concern to anybody else, namely
> its being a strong case.  For strong and weak inflectional forms are normally
> (and I believe, ultimately completely) distributed by a phonetic principle:
> The stress simply shifts one syllable towards the end of an inflected stem if
> the added flexive has an underlying vowel. Thus, there is not stress shift
> before *-m, *-s, *-t of the sg. active, for there is no syllable to go to,
> and hence these are strong forms; by contrast before *-me, *-te, *-ent, and
> those of the dual and the whole of the middle voice (e.g. *-H2e) there is a
> stress shift, so these are weak forms. Likewise in declension, where *-s,
> *-m, *-H2 and zero leave the accent where it was (strong forms), while *-os,
> *-ey, *-VH1, *-oom, *-bhyos, *-bhis, *-su do cause the accent to move (weak
> forms). Only the dual in *-e and the nom.pl. in *-es seem reluctant to fall
> into line. I have managed to explain the nom.pl. *-es from an earlier
> vowel-less sequence *-z-c (i.e., two different syllables, one marking the
> nom., the other the pl., in that order, structurally parallel with the
> acc.pl. in orig. *-m- + sibilant),

Why not simply *-s(V)s(v)?

> the calculation giving at the same time phonetic explanation of all the many
> other oddities of the nom. pl. forms, esp. the type in *-'-or-es, *-'-on-es:
> Why is the -o- not lost? Why is it o, not e? Why is it not long? Why has the
> e not been lost? And, of course, why is the e not accented?

There is no doubt that these are all good questions.

> All of this is explained by **-z-c where there was no vowel to shift to: An
> unaccented -e- is first reduced to -o-; then the nom. sibilant ("-z-")
> lengthens (result now *-'-o:r-zc); then short unstressed vowel are lost (but
> this form does not have any, so the rule operates vacuously here); the a long
> vowel is shorted before word-final triconsonantal clusters

For some languages, perhaps. But for IE, a tri-consonantal cluster of this
form is not likely to have been a realized phenomenon at *any* stage of IE.

> containing the nom. sibilant (result now *-'-or-zc, much like nom.sg. of
> prs.ptc.  **-ent-z, through **-ont-z and *-o:nt-z with length at the critical
> time when short unaccented vowels were lost, is shortened to *-ont-z, PIE
> *-onts); from *-'-or-zc to the actual *-'-or-es the road is short: it takes a
> vowel insertion, and since we have no contrasting evidence to stop us we may
> just postulate a change to *-'-or-ezc before the last step, the well-known
> change of all sibilant clusters to plain /s/, creates the IE output *-'-ores
> which everybody posits on different grounds already.

For whatever it may be worth, on the strength of comparative data (which
most will not accept), I do not believe the genitive -s and plural -s had a
voicing contrast, rather an earlier difference of vowel: plural /so/;
genitive /se/.

> Thus encouraged, one would like to derive the dual *-e from something
> ultimately in equal fashion. Now, since the pronouns make one posit /H3/
> as the morpheme of the dual, one may simply toy with an older form in
> *-H3.

I do not believe that the data "make" us posit /H{3}/ as a dual formant.

> From a consonant stem like *H2ner- 'man', the form PIE *H2ne'r-e would then
> have to be derived from an older form *H2ne'r-H3. This entails the postulate
> that word-final *-H3 developed an auxiliary vowel after a preceding
> consonant, i.e. went to *-eH3. I know of no IE words in unaccented *-eH3, nor
> any words in *-C-H3, so the postulate that this gave *-C-eH3 and then lost
> the H3 to yield IE *-e would contradict nothing we know, and so could be
> correct. - Note, however, that even without this possibility of a principled
> understanding I would still have to posit *-e, for that is what the existing
> evidence gives you.

I think one important factor that should be considered in these equations is
the example Beekes gives on p. 195 of Greek <o{'}sse>, 'pair of eyes', which
he derives from *ok{w}-iH{1} THROUGH *ok{w}-ye. We could, just as easily,
posit a dual in -y and forget about the laryngeal.

>> 2) If view of what you have written below about length and its connection
>> with open syllables, would you mind explaining why an open syllable seems
>> sufficient grounds to you above to explain the length of Sanskrit <a:>?

> Brugmann's law simply records the fact that IE short *-o- in an IE open
> syllable turns up in Indo-Iranian with length, i.e. as IIr. /-a:-/. I see
> no problem with such a phonetic rule pertaining to one of the IE branches.
> In terms of phonetic naturalness, it is okay, for [o] is more sonorous than
> either [e] or [a], and open syllables do accord more space for lengthening
> than closed ones, ergo, if only one of the three vowels e,a,o should come
> out longer than the others, it would be o; and if it should be sensitive
> to the syllable structure, it is expected to work better in open than in
> closed syllables.

This is interesting speculation but I believe that IE displays far more -a:-
than -o:-. Is that not true?

>>>> He then proceeds to identify an inanimate (neuter) -*iH{1}.

>>> He is right in that.

>> Well, then it is incumbent upon you to provide the definitive argument for
>> the existence of the "pure vowel" [i], which has eluded every IEist who has
>> put his pen to it.

> Neither Beekes nor I see the i of *-iH1 as underlyingly syllabic;

If there is a school that does not accept /i/ as syllabic, I suggest you
think about changing schools.

> in phonemic terms it may just as well be given the notation *-yH1. And,
> hurrah, it is a strong case, i.e. contains no underlying vowels.

In view of Sanskrit o-stem <yuge:{'}>, I am not sure what the cause for
jubilation is.

>>>> I would maintain that the great majority of the (animate and inanimate)
>>>> forms can be more simply from *-y.

>>> Not the ones we find, if they are to be treated by the phonetic rules we
>>> normally accept.

I claim to accept every established phonetic rule that you do but we differ
in their application.

>> Well, generalizations are less than illuminating. Why not give a few
>> examples if you believe this?

> *H2ner-y cannot give Gk. ane'r-e;

In view of Gk. o{'}sse, why not?

u-stem. *-u-y cannot give Skt. -u:.

Why cannot su:nu{'}- + -y yield su:nu:{'} with compensatory lengthening?

> What _is_ the basis of your decision in favour of *-y ??

The majority of the attested forms, there being no /i/ in IE..

> [... (On "us two" in IE):]

>> (JER:)

>>> I'm not that much of an oracle, but my guess is *noH3 which stands to the
>>> accented form *nH3we' as does *nos to *nsme', and in parallel fashion *woH3
>>> for 'you two' : accented form *uH3we' (apparently dissimilated to *uH3e')
>>> which would match the 2pl *wos : *usme' - provided /m/ develops into /w/ in
>>> the position after the dual marker /H3/.

>> This is the least logical proposition that I have seen you advance. So
>> enclitic *noH{3} just conveniently drops a *-we{'}? and *nos just drops an
>> inconvenient *-me? and a stress-unaccented enclitic *woH{3} modifies its <w>
>> to /u/ in *uH{3}we{'}? {3}.

>> I think you are engaging in free association.

> I'm trying to make sense of it all in a principled way that respects the
> evidence of IE itself where there is some.

IMHO, this is the least principled of your arguments heretofore --- some of
which, however, are thought-provoking and interesting.

> It may be illogical to abbreviate wordforms when forming enclitic variants of
> them, but many languages plainly do that.

Not in my opinion. I believe that emphatic variants are marked by expansions
of the underlying forms found in enclitics.

> It's like numerals and greetings, you get all sorts of reduced shapes in
> allegro speech, since people already understand the message at the beginning
> (sometimes even before).

Some holes do not improve with additional digging.

> The Lithuanian dative jam 'to him' is not from some enigmatic m-form in IE,
> its older form was jamui, a perfectly regular dative, from which it has been
> abbreviated by no known rule whatsoever.

I prefer to think that there is no enigma involved in *me; that it was
expanded in some languages by H{1}e- for semantic distinctiveness and
perhaps emphasis; that a topical  (and later, simply more distinctive) form
of *me was *mew (seen in Hittite -mu); and that this (once) inflected form
was *also* expanded by H{1}e-, and finally inflected for the dative (-ei),
producing jamui. I believe it is beyond unreasonable to suggest that jam is
a reduction of jamui! Simple always comes before complex.

Pat

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